Time To Fly

Time to cash in. You are done training. You are now racing. This is the time to fly and find out if your power work is there, or almost there. Mid March is a time when you should be on target for deciding the fate of your season.
I am coaching a Cat. 4 who told me in November he wanted to upgrade to a Cat. 3. He had mediocre results last season but lacked one primary thing - power. He was riding enough, about 12-13 hours a week which for a Cat. 4 is pretty good. He got a lot of top 15s but never got into the money (top 6). Kicking and screaming, we cut back his volume to 6-8 hours a week and mixed in some heavy Olympic lifting (deads, squat, cleans, etc) and worked on midline stabiliy and hit his posterior chain hard with dynamic efforts. He still wanted to ride more...only if you want a repeat of last season I told him.
Part two of his program was to cut out the junk miles. Intervals, higher-end efforts and repeats. Less on heart rate, more on power output. First test showed he could handle only 240 watts in the 7 minute test. We tested last weekend - 285 watts!
Last weekend, 4th place. This morning (he texted me from the stage race with lots of smiling faces) he got 2nd in the time trial and said he feels like a monster. This week's volume was 4 hours of riding. Rest, recovery and making every pedal stroke count.
If you learn how to fly, you will. Most riders miss getting that "lift." Get it?